Lawyers at several TV news operations moved quickly yesterday to try and lock up their talent — hours after reports surfaced that Jeff Zucker was close to signing on as head of beleaguered CNN, sources told The Post.

At the same time, producers and other off-air executives were celebrating the prospect of a bidding war for their talents, sparked by Zucker’s apparent need to shake up CNN, these sources said.

Zucker, the former CEO of NBCUniversal, is close to signing on as the top dog at CNN, TV insiders tell The Post.

Zucker, who would succeed current CNN president Jim Walton, who is exiting at year’s end, must revive a once-dominant news operation that has fallen into third place in the ratings — behind MSNBC and the longtime cable news leader, Fox News Channel.

FNC, like The Post, is owned by News Corp.

While visions of talent raids and jacked-up paychecks are dancing in the heads of TV executives, they might be smart to refrain from getting too excited.

Some friends close to Zucker said the executive will be moving slowly.

“He wanted to get back to news. This is what he wanted to do,” said one pal.

“He is thrilled,” said a second friend. “But he has no intention of showing up and making those changes — he’ll give it some time.”

In something of a parlor game, observers are guessing who the winners and losers of the expected move will be.

Mark Whitaker, who arrived from Newsweek in early 2011 as the managing editor of CNN Worldwide, might be vulnerable, simply because he was a recent hire of the soon-to-depart Walton, CNN sources speculated.

Others in the line of fire could be executives associated with CNN’s primetime lineup, these sources added.

That lineup, which features “Erin Burnett OutFront” at 7 p.m., Anderson Cooper’s “AC360,” at 8 p.m. and “Piers Morgan Tonight” at 9 p.m., averaged just 616,000 viewers in the third quarter.

The mediocre performance badly trailed MSBC’s average audience of 935,000 viewers during that period and FNC’s average audience of 1.99 million .

Burnett hailed from CNBC, where Jeff Zucker helped make her a star. Morgan was hired by Zucker to work on “America’s Got Talent,” and is said to be telling people he has a good relationship with Zucker.

CNN’s domestic primetime accounts for 10 percent of its overall revenue. The network is on track to record operating profit of $600 million in 2012.

Zucker is one of the most connected news executives out there, having not only insight into NBC’s vast portfolio but also knowledge of ABC News, where his business partner, Katie Couric, has offices.

In addition to tweaking prime time, one source said Zucker’s focus is needed on CNN’s morning segment.

Grabbing a piece of the “Today” show audience will likely be high on Zucker’s agenda. Zucker exited as the CEO of NBCUniversal when Comcast acquired half the company two years ago.